Steve Roper and Mike Nomad

Despite the changes in title, characters, themes, and authors, the entire 68-year run formed a single evolving story, from an Indian who teamed up with an adventurous young photojournalist to two long-time friends ready to retire after their long, eventful careers.

The strip was originally proposed by Elmer Woggon as The Great Gusto, illustrated by himself and written by Allen Saunders (who would also write Mary Worth and Kerry Drake).

Wahoo, rich from discovering oil on his land back in Te-e-pee Town (spelled both ways in the strip), headed to New York City to find his girlfriend Minnie Ha-Cha, who had gone away to college and was now a nightclub singer.

From the beginning, the storyline maintained continuity, and had already moved into serious adventure by 1940 when a dashing young photojournalist named Steve Roper was introduced.

After his World War II service in Navy intelligence, Roper got a job at Spotshot magazine (renamed Spotlight in 1950), and from then on the main action was set in New York City.

The strip's popularity grew: after the March 1948 birth of a son to Roper's friends Sonny and Cupcake Brawnski, there was a national write-in of suggested names from readers.

He continued exposing crimes and frauds, but his sense of moral outrage kept landing him in fiendish criminal traps that nearly finished him and some of the crooks he sent to prison with his exposés came back for revenge.

[10] The two men were different: pipe-smoking Roper was a fast-thinking, stylish, college-educated "straight arrow,", while flat-topped Nomad was a tough, street-smart antihero, loyal but not averse to deceiving, and impulsive.

Meanwhile, Nomad, who remained single, despite four close calls, was laid off from Proof and got new jobs, with new dangers, as a cab driver (1976) and then independent trucker (1981).

In 1983, Roper lost his wife (traumatized in an explosion, committed to a mental hospital, and soon divorcing him), got fired for taking dangerous risks in an exposé of political bribes, and then moved to Florida to make a new start as a TV news anchor.

John (1986) said he had helped since 1949 and had done the "writing chores" since the early 1950s; and in its release on his death in 2003, King Features Syndicate (in turn cited by Markstein) said he had had "full responsibility" over Steve Roper since 1955.

As the obituary in his hometown newspaper (Toledo Blade, 2003) put it, "John Saunders began working on the strips (i.e., Steve Roper and Mary Worth) periodically during the 1950s, but took over in 1979.